Chinese space officials today announced the country is still willing to work alongside the United States on extraterrestrial endeavors, especially the International Space Station.

"We sincerely hope to conduct cooperation with the United States in the field of space," said Li Xueyong, Vice Minister of Space and Technology. "At some point we hope to take part in the activities relating to international space stations."

Sixteen nations are currently involved in the ISS project, but China is not one of them even though the country has one of the fastest growing space programs in the world. China would ultimately like to have an astronaut stationed on the ISS in the future, but must convince the United States and other partners to allow a communist nation to be allowed to participate in the project.

Li did not clearly specify how China hopes to help the participating nations work on the ISS.

State media in China reported the country plans to launch its first lunar probe before November, only weeks after Japan launched one into orbit. In 2003, China became the third nation to successfully launch an astronaut into orbit with no help from other nations.

There is growing concern over the country's expanding space program, which reached a new level after China announced it had destroyed an old satellite last January by shooting a land-based missile to destroy it. Critics of the launch claim China could theoretically launch a missile to destroy active military satellites, though Chinese officials still claim the nation has only peaceful plans for space.

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What's that got to do with anything else going on? If fact means anything to you at all (and the rest of your post suggests that you are indeed an intelligent person) you ought to recognize that Bush's handling of the economy has been superb in so far as any president directly has influence of the economy. Capital gains and dividend tax cuts especially have helped the equities markets and the tax cuts in general have lead to record, or almost record, economic growth, prosperity and retirement accounts flush with gains. If it hasn't been the longest bull market in history then it's probably the second. Unemployment is, if you ignore the normal healthy structural unemployment and what not, is practically zero.

Oh, and the Clinton years of economic growth? Interesting that it occured after the Republican's forced tax cuts.

So.. uh.. where's the economy shot to bits again, asides from idiot homeowners buying properties on a speculative basis that they couldn't afford to actually hold on to for the long run? Not that it's really hurting the rest of the macro economy, mind you, but just covering that base in case you want to spin a sob story. Larry Kudlow speaks the truth; the American economy is the greatest story never told.

quote: and destroying all international relations - even the Brits hate America now.